Democracy & Water Politics: Meet Young Researcher Pawan
Pawan Kumar
Pawan Kumar’s research is on water politics in India. Titled “Democracy and Natural Resources: A Case Study of Water Resources of Kanpur”, it explores the links between liberal democracy and natural resources in general, and water in particular. The empirical sites of Kumar’s study are the water resources of Kanpur Nagar, Uttar Pradesh. Read on to know more about this young researcher.
The relationship between the human and natural worlds has had a long historical trajectory. This trajectory is one of the reflections of the changing terms of the discourse and of the replacement of “concepts” with modified meaning and theorization. For instance, how and when did we transform the concept of democracy into the concept of citizenship? How and when did we transform the concept of nature into the concept of natural resources? How and when did we transform the concept of human beings into the concept of citizens? how and when did we transform the concept of people into the concept of population? how and when did we transform the concept of knowledge (to live by) into the concept of expertise (to rule by)? (Akeel Bilgrami, Frontline, 2018, March 14). To add in these questions, how and when did we transform the concept of human into the concept post-human? These pertinent questions are important to understand and explain the trajectory of human-nature relations in the age of Anthropocene historically.
Monthly Review Press, Jal Manthan Kendra (MP), India Water Portal, Kerala Shastriya Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) (its role in right to water movement) and Water Conflict Forum are most influential websites which gave me an expression of issues around natural resource politics particularly water. After reading various literatures, on right to water movement and other new social movements across countries (Delhi and Plachimada Kerala Right to water movement 2010) led by political organisations and individuals shaped my interest area. However, water discourse in India remains limited to conflict and cooperation paradigm around inter-state and intra-state river water disputes and dams and displacement issues. Therefore, larger political, economic, ecological, social, and cultural dimensions of water are marginalized in this discourse.
In global liberal political discourse, I found no “liberal theory of natural resources”. Moreover, unlike global water discourse, water research and management studies available on the water crisis in India, more or less focuses on technical and administrative issues around water. I found that natural resources are being theorised and understood as a technical and administrative issue. The liberal resources economics dominates the discourse on natural resources where resources and capital are linked through neoliberal policy prescriptions thereby larger issues around sustainable human-nature relations are being marginalised. In this backdrop, I got familiar with this topic.
Looking at the severity of the water crisis in various states and in the country as whole which led several protests against this crisis and scarcity particularly of drinking water and water resources. In this context, my research focuses on water resources of Kanpur. Kanpur remains one of the districts situated on the Ganga River basin. Kanpur is the biggest city of the state and is the main centre of commercial and industrial activities. Formerly it was known as Manchester of India. Now it is the commercial capital of Uttar Pradesh. What was the most exciting thing you explored or went through during your research?
Various reports of the Government of India, State Government, and district administration have pointed out that till 2050; there would not be any scarcity of water in Kanpur. But various newspapers and online journals such as Down to Earth, Jal Manthan Kendra and books have shown a contradictory view. There have been several protests against the water scarcity of water in Kanpur city. Their scarcity and abundance remains unexplored dimensions of water in Kanpur city. In this backdrop, various stakeholders, Governmental and non-Governmental including the protesters and common people are selected for unstructured interviews and group discussion to understand and explain the problem.
Major Findings of the Study
Theoretically, the linkages between liberal democracy and natural resources are missing in liberal democratic discourse. The liberal concept of commons remains prominent discourse around natural resources wherein “too many people” narrative dominates over inequality and failure of liberal democracy across globe including India to address efficiently the sustainability of natural resources. Further, alternative conceptions of commons remain critique of neoliberal commons and policy prescription leading to commoditisation, commercialisation and privatisation of natural resources.
This study indicated that the drinking water crisis and supply situation in Kanpur South and other parts of the city is worsening day by day. The local residents and various stakeholder’s views represent this acute scarcity. This imagination of scarcity is beyond the drinking water problem. Dying water bodies, dead fishes in lakes, dry lakes, dead and polluted rivers of Kanpur are real expressions of the water crisis. In other words, an ‘urban metabolic rift’ is the actual reality of the water crisis which is not de-linked from the larger universal rift in social metabolism. The groundwater fluctuations, rain water fluctuations due to climate change, water intensive cash crops, and poor infrastructure remain fundamental reasons for the current water situation in Kanpur. The major causes of the scarcity are beyond Malthusian and Neo-Malthusian explanations. The class, caste, and gender remains a prominent factor in causing scarcity. The scarcity is politically, economically and socially constructed. The poor and old infrastructure remains another important factor in scarcity. Liberal parliamentary democracy has failed to acknowledge the water crisis in Kanpur. After drawing from interviews, discussion with various stakeholders, local people, and the manifesto of various political parties’ water scarcity and crisis remains untouched and under-represented. Therefore, liberal democracy and water are delinked in theoretical as well as practical terms.
Relevance of the Research
There is an intrinsic difference between water, and political rule (democracy). It is argued that after the triumph of capitalism, and arrival of neoliberalism, the idea of right to water has been shifted to rights of water itself with the emergence of new forms of ownership and control over water. These changes are construal to understand material (access) relations of humans to environment (natural resources) and human ecology.
This study makes it relevant to understand the relationship between water, and democracy in the context of changing property relations in the era of neoliberalism. David Harvey’s theory of accumulation by dispossession, and Joseph Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction provides the political-economic method which enables a discussion on water conflicts that facilitates an understanding of neoliberalisation strategies for new-infrastructure beyond existing infrastructure. The concept of social metabolism enables a theoretical understanding of water resources to look at the ecology of water.
Arguments, Suggestions to Society and Authorities?
The discourse on water in India and across the globe has recently emerged. It has been a complex issue of the discourse regarding water that whether water is common or commodity, private good or natural good or public good. The nature of discourses on the concept of right to water which explicates the various political, economic, social, ecological, geographical aspects of water are neoliberal which interchanged the rights discourse on water into citizen discourse. This is also an issue of less theorisation of democracy and natural resources.
The theorisation of democracy and right to water is done in the context of marketisation of water through various processes of neoliberalisation of water. The study makes an important intervention on important issues such as appropriation of strategies of discourse of human right to water by the corporate sector, and neoliberal rights discourse through policy perspective, the privatisation of water and the political economy of water conflict have engendered the accumulation by dispossession. Thereby, to reclaim commons, requires de-bureaucratisation and a political intervention through new social and ecological movements.
Further, growing water law in India needs an integrated approach but without neglecting autonomous role and contextual understanding of practices around water resource management and conservation across various spaces and communities. Further, larger social metabolism of human-nature relations needs to be intertwined with water resources.
Future of the Research
I look forward to extending this research for my post-doctoral studies. Moreover, I also plan to publish research papers on relevant fields and areas.
The present stage of earth’s history is recognised as ‘the age of Anthropocene’. This radical transformation is unprecedented and unsustainable in terms of human-driven global change and the earth system. This “Geological Age of Mankind” is notably demarcated as human-induced climatic, biological, and geological transformations of our planet.
This is a reflection of the ‘rift’ between humanity and nature. It can be understood on two accounts namely: ecological crisis (depletion of natural resources, climate change, degradation of ecosystem, etc.) and social crisis (represents various kinds of alienations: alienation from oneself, from each other, from our acts, from resources we produce, and from our environment-from nature itself). It is argued that the ecological and social crisis is inherently resulting from adverse effects of the very nature and structure of capitalist society. Further, an eco-social revolution (“massive” and sudden change in the relationship between human and nature) is required to save us from Anthropocene. Finally, it is claimed that “the ecological rift cannot be solved by a “sustainable development” that “modernises” or makes technological fixes while sustaining capitalist development-because capitalism itself is the root cause of the problem”.
Pawan Kumar is a research scholar at the Centre for Studies and Research in Gandhian Thought and Peace of the Central University of Gujarat, Gandhi Nagar. He can be reached at pawan.k0507@gmail.com.
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